Apparatus for games such as volleyball, played for non-professional, recreational purposes, especially for children's play, are normally inconvenient to carry and set up and are too expensive. There is a large body of prior art which shows various ways of supporting volleyball and other game nets, and which require guy wires, anchors, tightening ropes, ballast bags, heavily weighted bases and the like, all of which suffer from at least one of the deficiencies of being too expensive, inconvenient and difficult to handle and carry, and/or which are ineffective.
Included among these are the devices shown in the Peterson U.S. Pat. No. 3,968,968 and Eisenhart U.S. Pat. No. 4,979,754. Peterson discloses a game apparatus for playing mini-volleyball which can be used on beach sand. Eisenhart discloses a portable beach game apparatus. Both of these constructions utilize weighted bases to provide stability for their respective net posts, but in the case of Peterson the construction is too heavy if the weighted bases are to be effective. Thorward U.S. Pat. No. 1,327,072 and Hale U.S. Pat. No. 4,093,224 also show weighted bases, as well as means for adjusting the height of the net on the posts.
A number of other prior patents also show various means for adjusting the net height, including telescoping net posts or standards, these including the U.S. patents to Stettner et al U.S. Pat. No. 4,720,112; Lin et al U.S. Pat. No. 4,948,149; Wheeler U.S. Pat. No. 4,830,382; and Ginsburg U.S. Pat. No. 4,135,716. For the most part, however, these require bolts or pegs or the like to hold the posts in proper position relative to one another.